


(it's been) one week

by mletart



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magical Shop, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, College Student Adam Parrish, M/M, Ronan Lynch Swears, St. Patrick's Day, a little bit of Ronan's misadventures with dreaming, ah ha Ronan Lynch's potty mouth has a pre-established tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-11-05 02:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mletart/pseuds/mletart
Summary: My friend and I have agreed to go back and forth with prompting each other and trying to come up with a completed short story within one week. (Not a short story every week. That's just not realistic.) This is where I'll be organizing mine. Cross your fingers for me.Prompt 4: Adam works at a magical shop and Ronan is a customer."So you can give me something to take away my dreams?""Why do you want to stop dreaming?"





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 1: Noah's POV with Ronan and Adam adventuring in Cabeswater. I went vaguely Fantasy AU with it cuz that's my MO.

There were endless rumors surrounding the forest: it had spirits walking its paths, it was home to terrible monsters, it was enchanted and would sometimes grant wishes.

Noah hadn’t been especially interested in those rumors when he’d thought that was all they were. Even after he’d found that they were true, he thought that most people with sense ought to be able to tell that those rumors were more trouble than they were worth. The living would persist, though.

The boy who entered the forest seemed very sensible indeed. Noah was sure - in that way that he had of having a sense of these things - that it would take quite a lot for this boy to come to the forest.

The striking purplish bruise on his left temple and the sickly yellowing bruise across his right cheekbone probably explained some of that. The unsteady way he walked and the way he repeatedly touched his fingertips very carefully to his left ear explained more.

Noah went up to the boy's right side and said, “hello,” very softly, to try to avoid startling him.

It didn't work.

The boy jumped, a terrible combination of pure panic followed by forcible restraint. His second primary characteristic, after seeming sensible, seemed to be unfailing good manners; once he’d gotten a hold of himself, he introduced himself as Adam Parrish, and even went so far as to offer Noah his hand to shake. He shivered when Noah took it, but he didn't comment or wrench his hand back, and Noah was distinctly charmed.

Noah led Adam to one of the streams and warned Adam that he couldn't trust all of the forest’s waters, but assured Adam that this stream’s waters were rejuvenating. 

Adam held his hands over the water, unsure.

Noah couldn't fault him that. “You can turn back, if you choose.”

Adam looked into the water. Noah knew Adam saw only his own reflection, and Noah knew Adam was clever enough to understand what that meant. Adam regarded his own mirror image for a few heartbeats longer, and then he splashed water over his face.

The damaged skin was soothed under the droplets of water that ran gently down his cheeks, so that the bruises looked less tender and closer to fading. The damage wasn't entirely healed; Noah suspected there was no mere magic capable of doing that.

Adam quietly thanked Noah, which Noah shrugged off, because he didn’t know how anyone who saw Adam could have done less.

Then Adam sat down beside the stream, and after a few languorous moments of heavy blinking, fell asleep.

Noah didn’t have the heart to wake Adam, but he should have. The monsters that lived in the forest were drawn to sleepers.

The sound of massive wings beating, growing closer and closer, sent coldness sinking like a stone inside Noah. He used that feeling to help him sink into the magic running through the forest. He didn’t particularly like traveling this way, because it was eerie and too easy to get lost, but if he let himself go he could follow the forest’s magic back to its strongest source: Ronan Lynch. They needed Ronan Lynch right now.

Noah gathered himself beside Ronan, and said, “quick, help!” and put a hand on Ronan’s shoulder, and spirited them away back to Adam.

“ _Jesus_ , Noah,” Ronan swore, which was all the time he had to spare to convey  _ you know I fucking hate it when you do that  _ and  _ you really need to work on your concept of sufficient warning  _ and  _ what now what now what now _ before Ronan was charging the night horror with his blade drawn.

Ronan was more than familiar with how to fight the night horrors, but the night horrors were more than familiar with how to fight Ronan, and so it was a bitter bloody struggle. It hurt just to watch, so Noah looked to Adam.

Adam had been shocked into wakefulness and hadn’t been able to do much more than scramble as far back from the monster as he could get, but now that Ronan had drawn off the night horror’s attention, Adam surveyed the battle before him with wide apprehensive eyes, taking in all that he could. Adam’s hands were clenched in the soil, and Noah was filled with the awareness - in that way that he had of having a sense of these things - that something was happening. Adam was making a connection with the forest, there was magic at work here.

In front of them Ronan narrowly avoided losing an arm to the night horror's wickedly curved beak and jabbed his blade into the creature's neck to get the thing off him.

By all accounts that really ought to have been a death blow, but if it was, the creature was taking an ungracious amount of time to die. For now the night horror was angry, and was drastically more dangerous in its anger. It let out a wild sound like the wind howling and a tower tumbling down both at once, and when it rushed at Ronan there was no way for Ronan to get out of the way in time.

But — green vines prickling with sharp-edged thorns swarmed over the monster, circling around its wings and beak and legs in a tight vice-like grip.

Noah looked back to Adam. Adam's eyes were still apprehensive but they'd gone markedly more intent, his knuckles white where they pressed into the dirt.

The vines dragged the creature unyieldingly toward the stream. The creature resisted, furious, screeching and heaving itself violently enough against its restraints to snap some of the vines, but new vines grew in their place. Inch by stubborn inch, the creature was forced into the water until it was almost entirely submerged, still snarling and thrashing.

Ronan had hung back through most of this, caught off guard, but now he drew in a breath and lunged forward. He slammed his foot into the dead center of the monster’s skull in a merciless kick that contained all the rage that was probably responsible for the night horrors’ creation in the first place. 

The still form of the night horror sunk deep beneath the water, and disappeared. No one said anything until the last ripple had settled and the water ran smooth again.

Then Ronan turned to Adam.

Noah wasn’t sure if this meeting would be very good or very bad, but he had the feeling it would be a lot of one or the other.

“Who the hell are you and how the hell did you do that?” Ronan demanded.

“My name is Adam Parrish,” Adam responded, with a calm distant air that seemed better suited for the front of a schoolroom than a dangerous and enchanted forest. “And I don’t know yet. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Ronan watched Adam sharply, his eyes following Adam’s hands as Adam attempted to brush the dirt off of them. After several silent heartbeats had gone by, Ronan seemed to judge that Adam was telling the truth, but that didn’t make Ronan any more civil about things. “What did you think you were doing fucking around in the forest anyway? Haven’t you heard monsters live here?”

Adam’s brow furrowed in an unappreciative sort of way. “Lord Lynch claimed that the creatures that were rumored to inhabit these lands don’t exist.”

Ronan scoffed. “Well obviously _Lord Lynch_ is a fucking _liar_.”

Ronan didn’t mean for it to show, but there was an unmistakably strong amount of familiarity laced through the contempt in his tone. Noah had been able to tell right away that Adam was a clever one, and it was visible on Adam’s face that his mind was already whirling, clicking pieces into place. 

Lord Declan of House Lynch was known for doing an admirable job of presiding over his ancestral home and surrounding lands from a young age, particularly in the face of hostility from enemy Houses. It was a sort of common knowledge, though, that one of the more vexing thorns in Declan Lynch’s side was his own brother, the second-born son, Ronan Lynch.

Ronan Lynch had a reputation for an extreme excess of fighting, drinking, swearing, and horse racing. Despite this (in some instances, because of this) Ronan Lynch had won over the masses through his daring and valor. There were abundant stories of Ronan Lynch fighting off terrifying monsters single-handedly and saving countless lives. It was even said that Ronan Lynch saved the life of an orphan girl who’d wandered into the forest and decided to raise her as his own, although no one had ever seen the child for themselves. Ronan Lynch was fiercely, vehemently, inescapably clear that he did not want to be seen as any kind of hero. Regardless, the large majority just seemed to think that this attitude made him that much more roguishly charming.

Adam studied Ronan now with a vaguely perplexed sort of expression clouding his face. Noah thought he had an idea of what Adam was thinking. That Ronan standing before them barely seemed to have even the faintest trace of resemblance to the Ronan Lynch of legend. Which was true enough. But Noah knew that Ronan wasn’t as far off from the stories as a first impression would lead one to believe, either. 

Ronan also seemed to have a general idea of the thought process at work behind Adam’s shrewd gaze. Ronan’s own gaze was growing more and more combative by the moment.

Adam sidestepped the obvious pitfalls he could have walked into, and instead he asked, “What are you doing in the forest, then?” 

Ronan stared Adam down in challenge, but after a heartbeat or two it was clear Adam wasn’t backing down. “This time?” Ronan finally asked, cocking an eyebrow. He reached into the leather bag he wore strapped across his chest and pulled out a box. It was made of wood, dark and well-worn and somehow ancient looking, all six sides carved with an intricate design of trees and twisting vines. It emanated a palpable aura of magic. Of energy. Of possibility. “Looking for a safe place to open this.”

“What’s in it?” Adam asked quietly.

Ronan stared Adam down a few heartbeats longer. Then the corner of his mouth turned up in a dare. “If you wanna find out, guess you’ll have to follow me,” he said, and he walked deeper into the forest. He didn’t bother looking behind him.

Adam watched Ronan’s back, his gaze heavy and pensive.

“You can turn back, if you choose,” Noah told him again.

Adam looked at Noah, considering. Cautiously but steadily, he seemed to grow more and more decided. “There are spirits here. And monsters. I’m wondering -” He stopped and let out a quiet sort of breath, almost like he was laughing at himself. But he persisted. “I’m wondering if this is my wish.”

And he walked forward, deeper into the forest, to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 2: Ronan and Adam working at a summer camp.

Ronan fucking hated this place.

Ronan hated this fucking place.

Ronan fucking hated this fucking place.

It didn't matter how many times or how many different ways he thought it, it wasn't enough. It still couldn't properly convey the level of animosity he felt.

God, he  _ hated _ this fucking place.

Camp Aglionby was such bullshit. Ronan had been recommended to attend Camp Aglionby by a well-meaning but intrusive school psychologist when he was ten. Like she had any idea what she was dealing with. It hadn't helped Ronan with his vivid imagination, his restlessness, his irregular sleep patterns, or his nightmares, or anything else they'd sent him away for in the first place. It only made his actual sleep habits a hundred times more complicated for him.

The thing about Camp Aglionby was it didn't even pretend it could do anything for the SOBs who came to their camp. It’d never done anything to help Gansey either. Camp Aglionby was a high-end camp for children who suffered from insomnia and a wide range of other sleep disorders. To this end, the camp had round-the-clock staff to supervise the children, designated quiet areas for children to watch movies or read in the middle of the night, and medical equipment for the visiting doctors to monitor breathing or brain activity in voluntary sleep studies. Ronan  _ hated  _ doctors and never volunteered. The camp preached bullshit like deep breathing and meditation and journaling, and had a strict routine of dimming all lights for mandated “rest time” starting at 10 PM because even if the campers couldn't actually fall asleep, studies showed that taking the time to lie down and close their eyes was still beneficial to the camper's health. Yeah fucking right.

But at the end of the day, the camp itself stated that sleep disorders couldn't necessarily be cured, and their goal wasn't to be able to remedy all of the various issues their campers had with sleep. Their goal was to help the campers establish healthy rest habits, provide a comfortable environment for the campers at all hours, and to bring campers together who had similar experiences so that they could form bonds with children their own age who understood what it was like to spend whole nights never getting enough rest or spend whole days in a half-sleep state. What goddamn bullshit.

Even if Ronan did have to admit that Gansey was the best, only redeemable part of having to go to Camp Aglionby. They'd got on right away, from when they were ten, and Gansey was sentimental enough about the camp for the both of them, enough that he'd always wanted to come back even when they were old enough to stop attending the camp and start working there. Ronan would never know what Gansey saw in this fucking place.

And Ronan hated Camp Aglionby even more than usual tonight. Who the fuck actually held a staff _soirée_? Like the sick fucks in charge of this hellhole didn't get in enough time to torture their employees during regularly scheduled work hours throughout the _entire fucking summer_?

But then what kind of fucking morons actually attended the _staff fucking soirée_. That one was obvious, actually: of course Richard Campbell Gansey III was raised to feel intrinsically obligated to attend any soirée he was extended an invitation to. The real question was why the ever loving fuck was Ronan still friends with Gansey when Gansey used his pull over Ronan to guilt him into working at this stupidass fucking camp and showing up to this fucking shitshow of a bogus fucking _soirée_.

The worst part was Gansey fucking  _ abandoned  _ him, for reasons Ronan would never — fucking — understand, to go fuck off with the arts-and-crafts instructor, the short one from the weirdass psychic hippie witch family who evidently named their children colors.

No, the worst part was Adam Parrish was coming this way, and seeing as how Gansey was a traitorous little shit and wasn’t anywhere around, Adam was going to settle for talking to Ronan.

Fucking perfect. Because this was exactly what he needed. Like Ronan hadn’t had to look at Adam Parrish's stupid elegant loser face enough over this summer.

Adam Parrish had been inescapable all fucking summer, for reasons that had nothing to do with the actual desires or decisions of either one of them.

Ronan, when he’d gone from a camper to an employee in this genuine pit of Hell on Earth, had figured that being the tennis instructor was a lot less fucking work than being one of the group leaders for the snotty fucking little campers, like Gansey was. Adam Parrish was hired as one of the new maintenance guys the camp went through every summer, which meant he worked all over the camp and theoretically meant Ronan could have gone the entire fucking summer without ever having to cross paths with Adam Parrish. But of course, the new guy got put on gate duty, which meant he was in charge of checking in with the bus drivers and taking deliveries and moving cones and directing traffic on visitor days and blah blah blah. This was only relevant because what it came down to was Adam spent an unnecessary amount of time in the camp parking lot. And guess what was located directly to the left of the parking lot. That’s right. The fucking tennis courts.

Because life was just out to fucking get him like that.

No, it really was. Because Ronan’s favorite camper (Gansey was always going on about how you weren’t supposed to have favorites, but bull fucking shit; if an adult-type figure told you they didn’t  _ have _ favorites, all that meant was you weren’t their favorite) was a little fucking turncoat and was all about Adam. 

Opal had come to the tennis courts every single morning, without fail, when campers had free time between breakfast and the start of the day’s official camp activities. For the first solid three weeks, Opal would slowly amble back and forth in front of the courts like she just happened to be walking there, and tennis and Ronan were completely irrelevant to the equation. Every single morning for those first few weeks, Ronan had to actively cajole her into coming into the tennis courts and picking up a fucking racket already. He didn’t know why he found this endearing. But once she got comfortable around him, she must have noticed Ronan’s gaze straying to Adam maybe one too many times, because she spent the remaining fucking  _ five weeks _ wailing the ball as hard as she could clear out of the tennis courts and into the parking lot. That kid had a fucking arm on her. And polite Adam Parrish brought the ball back over every single time without complaining. Not just without complaining: usually with some quick but friendly bullshit comment about how if Opal worked on her aim a little she could really go places. The most infuriating part was it wasn't like Ronan bought that Adam was really all southern charm. There was faint exasperation neatly hidden in the curve of his eyebrow and the line of his jaw, if you were looking, and it was obviously directed toward Ronan instead of Opal, who only made an effort to look innocent when she had the most to hide. But Adam would never say anything rude to a child, and he'd never say anything unprofessional to a coworker, so southern charm was what they were left with. And even though Ronan knew it was fake, it was still somehow dangerously effective. Opal ate it the fuck up and looked for Adam wherever and whenever else she could throughout the rest of the summer, because she was a horrible little brat.

And to add insult to injury, after the first month of camp, guess who Gansey decided to fucking drag over to their staff table for lunch? Of course it was Adam fucking Parrish.

The moral of this story was Ronan spent way too much of his summer viciously smacking the shit out of tennis balls while he viciously told himself to stop being a pathetic dipshit. He’d always judged the shit out of the dumbass female staff who went around making out with the dumbass maintenance guys in the towel shed or some sort of dumbass place like that, and he’d mentally smacked himself a hundred and one times this summer for being so close to wanting to be that much of a dumbass. He was glad the summer was over, because he could stop ever having to see or think about Adam Parrish ever again. Except no. Of course not. Of course Adam was approaching him.

“You look good, Lynch,” Adam greeted him mildly.

Jesus fucking shit, _really_?

It was probably some sort of attempting-to-reward-good-behavior thing because Ronan had in fact put on a suit, as per the event’s dress code, even if he did shove up his sleeves and even if he had lost his tie somewhere. (He may despise suits on a spiritual level but the Lynches subscribed to the idea that if you were gonna show up you were gonna show off.) But still. They were  _ really  _ having this conversation right now? This  _ oh look at you in your navy suit that brings out your fucking eyes Parrish get the  _ fuck  _ out of my face _ type conversion?  _ Really _ ?

“Likewise, Parrish,” Ronan returned, cutting his gaze to the bar and biting down on the leather bands on his wrist to put an end to this line of conversation.

Adam's silence seemed to convey that he couldn't tell if Ronan was being sincere or if Ronan was being an asshole.

Good. Keep wondering.

Ronan continued staring down the bar. The Higher Ups had made a production out of emphasizing that the bar staff for tonight's event had a list of everyone under the legal drinking age, and anyone on the list who attempted to order a drink would be escorted off the premises and wouldn't be invited back next summer. Like that was a threat, as opposed to a massive incentive. Ronan was about to go up to the bar and defy anyone who would dare try to deny him a drink right now, when Adam spoke.

“You know, I’ve been wondering something.”

Ronan vaguely contemplated murdering every single person on the property with his bare hands as a million times more preferable to seeing where the fuck Adam was going with that.

“I saw Opal give you something she made for you in Ceramics for the last day of camp.”

“A raven holding a tennis racket.”

To his credit, this didn’t phase Adam at all. He just nodded. “And you said you’d put it somewhere safe,” - actually Ronan had said that he was going to go make a little bird tennis court for it, sarcastically, and Opal had given him a shit-eating grin and told him to paint it with birdshit; Ronan didn’t think he cared for the way Adam so easily interpreted events at all - “And then you slipped off, and you weren’t at lunch and you weren’t in your cabin. Where’d you go?”

Adam looked for him? Ronan ruthlessly stomped down whatever feeling that thought inspired before it had time to grow roots, and only then did he let himself look at Adam. Adam had questions, and Adam would probably cause more problems trying to get answers on his own than if Ronan just showed him. Or maybe Ronan was just reaching for excuses to do what he wanted to do anyway. What the fuck ever. “Why? You wanna see?”

With that, Ronan turned toward the door.

Maybe Adam wouldn't follow. Maybe he’d think it was too rude to walk out on a staff function. Maybe he’d remember that you could tell Ronan Lynch was trouble from roughly 3000 miles off and Adam Parrish didn’t need that.

Or maybe he was a few steps behind Ronan because he’d made up his mind that he was going to see this through.

Fucking aces. Whatever. They were doing this then.

“Where are we going?” Adam asked.

“The music rooms,” Ronan answered. There were soundproof rooms at the very back of the camp for those who liked to play instruments instead of sleep.

“The music rooms,” Adam repeated, without inflection, clearly hoping to garner more information.

“It's where I stash my shit,” Ronan told him, unhelpfully.

“Why?” Adam asked, quietly curious. Ronan had known Adam wouldn't be able to let this go.

“When I was a camper I used to practice the bagpipes pretty much every night. Now it's just habit to leave my shit there.”

Adam blinked at him. “You played the bagpipes?”

“I'll play for you sometime,” Ronan told him casually, and smirked as he watched Adam try to pretend not to be intimidated by such a threat.

That got them to the music rooms in silence, and Ronan led Adam to the last one on the left, which had an official-looking ‘closed for refurbishment’ sign on the door. Ronan tore it off and threw it over his shoulder; he wondered if Adam would say something about it, but Adam seemed more interested in what was behind the door than he was in petty littering.

When Adam entered the room, he went first to the rosewood spinning wheel in the corner. In Ronan’s dreams the wheel had been masterfully spun by an elderly woman Ronan didn’t know. He didn’t remember what she’d been telling him as she worked, only that she spoke with a lilting Irish accent that sounded so much like his father’s. Ronan hadn’t taken any chances trying to work the wheel once he’d woken, and Adam knew better than to touch it either, but it still felt like tempting fate to pay the spinning wheel too much attention. Adam wisely moved on.

Strewn over the chairs and shelves and music stands was a collection of glass vials and crystal decanters and small ceramic jars. They were filled with liquids and oils and powders that tended to come from his more surreal dreams that were hard to pull himself out of.

Adam held one of the vials up and studied the murky, misty substance with a scientist’s eye. “Is this supposed to help you sleep?”

“Basically.”

“Does it work?”

“Probably too well.”

Adam put the vial back carefully and neatly bypassed the fruit bowl filled with gleaming red apples - which Ronan knew from his dreams tasted like pomegranate and were filled with poppy seeds - on his way to examine the pile of fabric in a heap on the floor. There was a thick quilt that Ronan had pieced together in his dreams out of handfuls of clouds, a patchwork of wispy white and storm gray. There was a comfortably worn out beige sheet that was always warm and always smelled a little like hay, that was from one of his crueler dreams because it was the faintest taste of everything he didn’t have anymore. There was a robe that was light as air that shimmered such a deep blue it was almost black against the tiny pinpricks of silver covering it, which Ronan wore in his dreams but would wait for the right night to wear it in the waking world. Adam sifted through them gently, mindful to leave the pile the way he found it.

Next Adam moved to consider a mask made of iridescent feathers, a circlet forged from brambles, and a wooden net threaded with spider’s web - all ineffectual attempts to hold back nightmares - letting his fingertips drift close to the objects without touching any of them.

Then his attention was snagged by some of the more magical of the dream objects. Adam picked up a bronze cylinder and turned it. It was the same basic premise as a kaleidoscope, but instead of having to look into it, it cast out light like sun rays when it sensed motion. It was bright enough to light up the already lit music room with an array of colors in dancing patterns.

“What's this?” Adam asked, running his fingers back and forth through the streams of light, charmed. 

Ronan made a show of shrugging his shoulders. “A flashlight but cooler.”

Adam didn't bother to respond to that, looking next at an ornate silver mirror that didn't show you your reflection, but showed a far-off forest. Adam didn't ask him where the forest was or if it were real, which was good, because Ronan didn't have those answers yet.

Then Adam went to the deck of cards that was quietly shuffling itself all on its own. He was interested enough in the cards to spread all 78 of them out on the floor to examine them. “Are these tarot cards?” Adam asked, fingertips drifting over the subtly moving images of ravens and stags and satyrs. “I don't think these are the standard arcana or suits. What are the readings like?”

Ronan tossed Adam a thin booklet that had gone along with the cards in the dream they'd both come from. “Take them. Experiment with them till you find out.”

Ronan wondered if Adam wouldn’t go for it. Lord knew Adam had issues accepting anything from anyone; how many fights had he had to witness that boiled down to Gansey trying in his misguided way to be helpful and Adam adamantly refusing anything that could even remotely be seen as a handout?

But either this situation was just so weird it skirted around Adam’s extensive issues or Adam’s curiosity was that strong, because Adam neatly collected all of the cards and tucked them along with the booklet into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Only then did he ask, “Ronan, where did all of this come from?”

“My head.”

Adam only looked back at him and waited.

Ronan let out a heavy breath. Then he nodded to the spinning wheel. “Grab an end - just the wood, watch your fingers - and I’ll tell you as we go.”

And he explained the bare bones of it, of growing up pulling things out of his dreams, as he led Adam through the woods behind the camp. Adam absorbed it all quietly, with only a few questions and a deeply pensive look on his face. He handled it better than Ronan would give most people credit for.

Ronan let Adam have his silence. It’d take more than one walk to process this.

When they got to the grass clearing and set the spinning wheel down, Adam finally spoke to ask, “Is this still on camp property?”

“Good question, Parrish. If you hear gunshots, duck.”

Adam scoffed wryly. “Solid advice, Lynch. What are we doing out here?”

“Destroying the evidence.”

Adam took this well, too. He only asked, “How?

“I’ve got shit back at the music room. But first you wanna see the most ironic things I dreamt up?” Ronan whistled sharply, and off by the far side of the clearing, three sheep appeared by the treeline. 

Adam blinked as the three sheep approached them. All three of them were a gradient of black, from a muted charcoal color to a deep obsidian. The coarse curls of their wool had a prism sort of effect, though, so as they moved, faint colors glinted off of them in all different hues. The boldest of the three nudged at Adam’s hand gently, and at that, Adam started to laugh. He laughed so hard he actually tugged the collar of his shirt up a little to try to hide part of his face, because he couldn’t pull himself together. It was pretty great.

“You’re something else, Lynch,” Adam said eventually, once he’d calmed some, but he was still working on getting his breath back. “What are you gonna do with them now the summer’s over?”

Ronan shrugged a shoulder carelessly. “Let them roam feral?” 

This inspired fresh peals of laughter from Adam, though it was softer. “All right. Let’s see what else you have stashed in your music room.”

It wasn’t unpleasant, walking back through the woods and packing up what was left in the music room. They managed to get everything into a compact-looking satchel printed with a repeating design of small black ravens that Ronan had dreamed to have Mary Poppins-esque proportions on the inside.

Then they brought the bag back to the clearing. Ronan pulled a chainsaw he’d already packed away earlier in the summer out of the bag, and he pulled out a hatchet for Adam, and they applied themselves to the task of breaking down the spinning wheel into kindling with a reckless sort of glee.

They set the pieces on fire, and they went through the bag for the things that were dangerous or the things that wouldn’t be of much use, and they threw them into the flames. It was essentially the coolest chemistry experiment you could ever ask for. The dream things had a tendency to make what started as small flames flare up by a solid three feet, or to make the flames burst with a deep indigo color, or to make the smoke drift and curl into a bizarre myriad of shapes. Ronan got Adam laughing again when he pulled a package of actual marshmallows out of the bag.

In spite of himself, Ronan was actually feeling pretty up, even if he was here at this stupid fucking camp when he shouldn’t fucking have to be.

Of course, it was just around the same time that Ronan was thinking this that Gansey came blundering into the clearing.

“Ronan! I was looking for you, I wasn’t sure where you’d gotten to and I was beginning to worry!” - which, what a _fucking hypocrite_ , but Gansey was oblivious to Ronan’s death glare and guilelessly kept on - “I checked the woods, and when I saw the smoke in the distance I just knew that’s where I’d find you.”

Then Gansey spotted Adam and brightened considerably. “Adam! I’m so glad I got to see you before the night was over!” Gansey shook Adam’s hand, and no amount of eye-rolling could do any sort of justice to the amount of unadulterated fucking disgust Ronan felt in that moment. What fucking bullshit; there was no lecture for Adam, was there. Blatantly fucking unfair.

Then Gansey asked, “Will you be returning next summer?”

And Adam looked at Ronan before saying, “Yeah, I think I will.”

And Ronan thought that tonight wasn’t so fucking bad after all. 

Maybe, next summer might even be worth it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
> 
> This is one of the rare ones that isn't an AU.

Adam Parrish didn't have time for Saint Patrick’s Day.

The thing was, he would have given his roommate and the rest of campus Saint Patrick's _Day_. A whole 24 hours if they were really that invested in it. But college kids didn't need an excuse to funnel alcohol and make asses of themselves, so when they actually had one, the effect was that much more compounded. They'd been going since _last Wednesday_. Now they were down to the night before and Adam was reaching the end of his rope.

Adam may be in college but he would never be a college kid. He had his sights set a whole lot higher than green beer and foreseeable green vomit. As another round of raucous laughter and drunken cheering drifted through the dormitory windows, Adam resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and yell out the window for them to find themselves a goddamn hobby.

He was tired. In all honesty, he probably didn't really need to be working on this essay right now. It wasn't due until next week and he'd been diligent about keeping up with his readings. Intellectually he knew that what he was working on wasn't that urgent, but old habits were hard to break, and he'd probably always feel like he had to be doing something more. But either way, the noise from outside would keep him up and while he was awake he was going to be doing something productive with his time.

At 1:53 AM Adam's phone lit up with an incoming text. It was an image of Opal looking like she'd been attacked by a fairy whose weapon of choice seemed to be green plastic. It wasn’t just Opal, either, she was surrounded by shelves brimming with cheap green decorations. She had as many green necklaces of shamrock-shaped beads as she could possibly get around her neck, a green and gold sequined skirt on her head on top of her skull cap, tiny sparkling green hats with thin bands meant to go underneath a child's chin covering the entire length of both of her arms, and Adam counted at least five pairs of green sunglasses - one upside down on her forehead, two tucked into the beads around her neck, one peeking out between the frills of the skirt, one dangling precariously from behind her left ear, none actually covering her eyes - easily visible in the picture. Her smile was ferocious.

Adam laughed quietly and sent back, ‘yeah but what does the other guy look like?’

He looked at the picture again and had the oddest impulse to set it as his background. He thought he really needed to get to sleep. The image warmed something in him, but it made him feel a little melancholy too. The longer he looked at the picture, the heavier the feeling that was starting to weigh on his chest grew. He didn't know why a picture that captured the best part of the chaotic energy that Opal got from Ronan was making him feel this way now. He thought it had something to do with how he knew exactly where they were. How many late-night-early-morning trips had he taken to this exact Dollar City in Henrietta, Virginia? Looking for the grossest possible drinks to mix together for a dare. Scavenger hunting for the corniest kitchen utensils. Pressing the paw of a shoddy toy kitten that played Eye of the Tiger over and over because it made Ronan laugh, even if he tried to deny it later. Adam could picture it so clearly, and so he knew precisely what he was missing out on.

Ronan had been (relatively) good about answering his phone while Adam was away out of necessity, but he still hated phones just as much as he ever had, so Adam wasn’t expecting anything more from him. Two voluntary images sent in less than ten minutes would have been unprecedented. But another image came, this one of Ronan. It was at a far-off angle, taken from as far up as his long arms could reach, and he was looking exasperatedly off-camera. Adam could too easily imagine Opal trying to make a grab for the phone or trying to get another gaudy green decoration onto Ronan. Probably both at once. Ronan had a glittering black bowler hat precariously angled on his head, looking like it was about to fall off from the weight of a green plastic headband haphazardly added on top of the hat, the focal point being the two light-up shamrocks set on either side of the headband like antenna. He had an entire green mesh wreath around his neck, along with a few strands of the beads Opal was so fond of. It was somehow - even through the tacky dollar store trimmings - a very Ronan Lynch sort of picture. It was something about the set of his shoulders, his sharp jaw and long lashes, and most of all his scowl, which didn’t actually succeed in concealing the affection Adam could tell Ronan was feeling in that moment. It made Adam ache, a feeling like physical sickness, a feeling 16-year-old Adam would never have really believed himself capable of experiencing.

He typed out ‘what I’d give to be there in person, Lynch’ and read it back to himself to make sure it didn’t sound too overtly pathetic before hitting send. Then he curled into bed.

 

* * *

 

When the insistent pounding on the door woke him up, Adam’s first muzzy thought was he’d somehow slept through a fire alarm and now the Fire Marshall was here to personally evacuate him from the building. Embarrassing, but distinctly possible.

He spared a glance to the other side of the room and saw it was still empty. Right, Saint Patrick’s Day. That was probably his roommate at the door, who’d probably lost or forgotten or was just too drunk to use his key card.

If Adam’s half-asleep thoughts hadn’t been preoccupied with the idea of opening the door and closing it again in his roommate’s face (which was nice to think about even if Adam wouldn’t actually do that) he probably would have been able to work out who was at the door.

As it was, he wasn’t expecting Ronan Lynch to be standing there.

Adam gripped the door handle and stared for a heartbeat or two.

Ronan tossed a green string of beads around Adam’s neck, and held up the oversized shamrock that flashed with light in the center of the necklace, as if that offered some kind of explanation. “It’s the day of my ancestors, Parrish.”

Ronan wasn’t wearing any of the dollar store accessories anymore. He was wearing what he always wore, his black leather jacket and black muscle shirt and black jeans and black boots. He still hadn’t let go of the necklace Adam was now wearing. He was _here_.

Adam rushed forward and kissed him. Slung his arms around Ronan’s broad shoulders and kissed him like he’d been wanting to so badly last night, like he wanted to whenever he let his thoughts wander even the slightest bit in class or while working on homework or during study sessions at the library.

The curve of Ronan’s lips against his and the warmth of Ronan’s hands on his lower back, pulling him closer, went a long way toward soothing some of that feeling in Adam. But when Ronan pulled back to breathe out, “Jesus,” there was so much of Adam that was still left wanting that he felt a little hollow with it, even as Ronan said, “Missed you too, Parrish,” in what was probably meant to be a taunting sort of tone but missed the mark spectacularly.

Adam didn’t bother responding to that; he grabbed hold of Ronan’s hand and pulled Ronan inside.

It was time to take an excuse to celebrate.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: Adam works at a magical shop and Ronan is a customer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with that prompt, I went in a very vaguely inspired by xxxHolic sort of direction for the AU. Very vaguely inspired, so if you don't know it that won't be a problem.
> 
> also I set up Opal here in a way that suits my purposes for this story and doesn't strictly follow what's established for her in the novels so idk just roll with it?

If you knew to look, if you had need of such things, if circumstances aligned properly, you may be able to find your way to a cottage deep in the woods where there lived three witches. If circumstances aligned properly, if you had need of such things, if you knew to ask or sometimes even if you didn't, they may grant you a wish, for a price.

The process seemed designed to be deliberately nonsensical.

Adam Parrish had sought out the cottage because he'd been hoping that the witches rumored to live there might be able to restore hearing to his left ear.

Maura, Persephone, and Calla had explained soberly that that wasn't how the magic worked. What they could offer - they hadn't explained in precisely such terms - was a safe place to stay and an unceremonious apprenticeship in magic.

Adam had spent years quietly watching Maura, Persephone, and Calla do their work.

Adam had watched as a man came to the cottage who looked like he hadn't slept in months and told the three women that he was tired of hearing whispering voices. Calla's fingers had only barely brushed the man's hand when she reared back, clutching at the side of her own face as if she'd been struck. Calla had a tendency to be brash and sharp-tongued, just as a matter of course, but Adam had never seen her truly angry before that moment. She told the man that for daring to return to the forest she would make the voices become one voice, and that voice would scream inside his own head until he confessed to what the voice was there to remind him of. Calla's words were so dangerously scathing they'd been as good as physical lashes; the man had hastened to flee the cottage without so much as a backwards glance.

Adam had watched as a man came to the cottage and told the three women that he was something of a collector and that he was searching for something dark and otherworldly that would impress the woman he intended to marry. Adam had to pour the man tea as the three women deliberated in the back room, and Adam remembered thinking that although the man looked comely enough, it was easy to tell that there was something very twisted beneath the surface. The man didn't touch a drop of tea. Persephone came out and gave the man a small carved wooden box that Adam recognized. Blue Sargent, Maura's daughter, had sent that box back from her travels which she pursued in her determination to learn more about breaking curses. Adam wasn't entirely sure of the story there; he hadn't wanted to press for more information about Blue Sargent, as talking about her daughter always made Maura seem so melancholy beneath the affection she spoke with. What Adam did know was that the box contained an amulet which Blue had sent off to the three women because it was the antithesis of what Blue was searching for. The amulet didn't break curses: it originated curses, it fed on curses, it afflicted anyone it touched to become more beset with whatever dark cursed potential they may have inside themselves. The man opened the box and studied the amulet, gleaming gold with an etching upon it that vaguely resembled a wasp, and said he'd take it. Persephone serenely accepted the fine wine and cheese the man offered in exchange while Maura and Calla stood reproachfully behind her. Adam showed the man out. "When all of their choices lead them in the same direction we don't much have to worry about where things will end," Persephone said enigmatically. "This really is very good cheese."

Adam had watched as a man came to the cottage who wore all gray, with gray eyes and gray stubble along his jaw and a gray disposition. The gray man hadn't had a request: he said he was lost. He stayed for a few days that stretched into a few weeks that stretched into a few months. He helped with some of the more labor intensive chores around the cottage; he was very good for keeping away the men that Maura, Persephone, and Calla didn't want to do business with; he recited poetry. Adam found that he missed the gray man when the gray man had told them all that it was time that he went, that it was past time that he dealt with some monsters from his past - though it was easy to see that Maura missed the gray man most. Before he left the gray man said that he hoped to return someday, if he was welcome, and after he left he and Maura exchanged letters. Adam didn't know what they wrote about, but the letters were long and they made Maura smile in that melancholy, affectionate way she had.

Slowly but steadily as he'd observed them, Adam had learned. How the three women opened their senses to see with more than just their eyes; how they were able to make connections; how they worked to maintain a widespread sort of balance within the larger world with each person who passed through.

The large majority of the time the three women were so in tune with one another that their decisions when it came to visitors to the cottage were seamless and unanimous. There were only a few extreme cases where one decided to act without the other two, or against the other two.

It was looking like the next case would be an extreme one. At least, that was the impression Adam got, from the way the three women were sitting with their heads together, whispering amongst themselves. Well, two were whispering. Calla said quite audibly, "I thought we liked the kid; you wanna feed him to a snake?"

Maura smacked Calla's arm lightly and said in her striving-to-be-the-mature-one sort of tone, "Adam, we're expecting a guest to arrive very soon. Would you like to take this one?"

Adam had assisted Maura, Persephone, and Calla in their dealings as they required, but he'd never before taken the lead when it came to a visitor to the cottage himself. His instinctive response was no, he would _not_ like to. At least, not when the visitor in question was cause for such discord between the three women.

But Persephone tipped her head at him and said in her small voice, "Maybe you need more time before you're ready?"

If anyone else had said it, the words would've probably seemed goading, but Persephone only looked at him consideringly with her fathomless dark eyes.

So Adam said, "I'll take this one."

The three women looked at one another, and Calla drained the liquor in her glass, and on that note, Adam prepared tea and took it in to the front room to be ready to receive the visitor.

Adam wasn't sure what he was expecting. Possibly a man who could turn into a wolf. Or a serpent. Or a shark. He was vaguely envisioning teeth.

The young man who banged at the cottage door was in no way part animal and his teeth were perfectly ordinary - though Adam didn't think he was mistaken in thinking that the visitor wouldn't have been opposed to the representation that Adam had been imagining for him.

His head was shaved, his eyes were angry, and the sharp edges of a tattoo curled up along the back of his neck.

The first words he said upon entering the cottage were, "I thought I'd find a witch here."

"Do I not look like a witch?" Adam asked wryly, arching an eyebrow.

The visitor looked at Adam then, a long look that seemed ultimately unimpressed. "So you can give me something to take away my dreams?"

"Why do you want to stop dreaming?"

"What's it matter? Can you do it or not?"

"I can. I'd want to know more information before I did."

"Fuck off."

"No one made you come here. No one's stopping you from leaving."

"For fuck's sake. If you can make a potion that can do what I ask then just do it and tell me what you want for it. What's it to you what happens after? You don't need to know anything about me."

"This isn't a speakeasy. Magic isn't meant to be anonymous. If I perform magic for you I'm at least partially responsible for how that magic is used, even if I'm not the one using it. It's all connected."

The visitor let out an irritated sound between his teeth. "I'm only gonna use it on myself and I have my own reasons. As long as it works I'm not interested in coming back around or holding you responsible. The faster you make something for me the faster we can be done here."

In Adam's experience, when a person was willfully set on their path, they wouldn't be swayed until they'd learned the hard way. 

So he said, "If I made you a potion it'll work. It's the consequences of it working you should be concerned with. If you want to ignore my recommendation that I scry or consult my cards first for clarification, then I can't speak to the repercussions."

"I'll take my chances."

Shocking. "Have a seat, I'll put together your potion."

When Adam entered the back room Maura, Persephone, and Calla were clearly striving with only moderate success not to seem too expectant.

Adam wanted to know if he was doing the right thing but he didn't want to have to ask.

Persephone looked up at him and raised her glass a little as if in a toast. "Things have a way of working out if you're willing to work with what you have," she told him vaguely. "Probably you should use an extra pinch of powdered moonstone." Then she sipped from her glass in a way that seemed to indicate that there was no more to say on that.

So Adam gathered together the necessary ingredients, Valerian root and wormwood and moonstone which he ground a little bit more of than he usually would just as Persephone had advised, and he brewed a potion for dreamless sleep.

When Adam took the bottled potion to the front room, the visitor was splayed in the chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his eyes closed.

"It's ready," Adam said quietly. He had the strangest feeling the visitor wouldn't wake.

But the young man's sharp blue eyes opened and he looked at Adam contemplatively. It lasted long enough for Adam to wonder what it was he was seeing, until he set down a featureless white jar on the table between them, beside his empty teacup.

"For your hands," he said as Adam set down the potion and picked up the jar, twisting it open and taking in the mist and moss scent of the cream inside.

Adam's hands always got dry and chapped when the weather got colder, especially when he was out gathering herbs. He looked down at his own hands, surprised someone else had noticed in such a short time.

The visitor's eyes were already on the door now. "Is that sufficient payment?"

Adam looked at the visitor contemplatively. "Almost."

Sharp blue eyes cut back to Adam. "What else do you want?"

"Your name."

The visitor cocked an eyebrow, challenging. "You haven't told me your name either."

"We'll trade."

Adam waited, and the silence stretched long enough that he didn't think the other man would tell him.

But then he said, like a dare, "Ronan Lynch."

"Adam Parrish."

Adam nodded to the potion on the table. "That should last you a month. Stop taking it and see me immediately if it comes back around to bite you."

"I already told you-"

"You'll take your chances. I'll be seeing you soon, then."

"Has anyone ever told you you're pretty shitty at dealing with customers?"

"Is it my fault I have shitty customers?"

Ronan flicked his fingers in a sardonic sort of salute with one hand and grabbed the potion with the other, and left.

Adam was sure that he'd be seeing Ronan Lynch again. He felt almost as sure that, really, they'd both be better off if they didn't see each other again. He felt more sure, in a way that he'd learned to recognize from his time studying Maura, Persephone, and Calla, that there would be no avoiding it, regardless. A surprising, far less certain part of himself wanted to see what would happen when they met again.

It took less than a week for the dreams to start. 

When Adam first dreamed of the small blonde girl with goat legs and enormous, forlorn eyes, she said the same thing over and over in an urgent tone but in words Adam didn't recognize. Finally, when Adam took her flailing hands gently in his own, she calmed enough to say, "Help Ronan!"

"How?"

But the dream dissolved around him and he woke up without any answer.

When he went downstairs Persephone said in her mild, indistinct sort of way, "I filled the kettle for you; and the scrying bowl."

"You don't have to use it," Calla said, letting her disapproval ring clear.

"We'll make sure you don't wander too far, if you want to see what you can see," Maura told him, remaining neutral.

Adam, he came to realize as he settled himself before the scrying bowl, was not neutral. For better or for worse he knew that Ronan Lynch was not something he could remain indifferent toward. He had to know what was happening, if only to see for himself what kind of havoc Ronan Lynch played on the waking world.

So he looked into the cool, still surface of the water and he let himself see.

He saw long, winding roads that led to green hills and greener fields. He saw trees bearing ripe plums and fields full of every color of flower and swift-moving families of deer. He saw a man who looked very much like what Ronan Lynch might look like in a few year's time sprawled broken on the ground, long dark hair all tangled with blood. Adam could sense, in the far off way of dreams, that this place inspired all at once an overwhelming amount of adoration in Ronan and an overwhelming amount of pain.

It was easy to get lost in, the memories resonated so strongly, but it wasn't what Adam needed right now.

He needed to know what Ronan dreamed of that was bad enough to make Ronan want to stop dreaming altogether. He needed to know what the consequences of Ronan avoiding those dreams would be. He needed to know what was scaring the blonde girl so badly.

Those were the paths of thought that Adam followed. Those thoughts led him to impossible countless memories of Ronan Lynch dreaming of all manner of things - fireflies, wickedly sharp knives, music boxes - and Ronan Lynch waking with those things in his hands. They led on to more recent memories of Ronan Lynch's dreams, adrenaline-spiked and full of something dark and indescribably wrong. That darkness took what should have been a dreamscape of a sweeping forest and spread like rot between the dappled sunlight, contaminating everything it touched so that the leaves and tree trunks and the very soil started slowly decomposing into oozing black sludge.

Worse than the sight was the feeling, the hollow hopeless emptiness, that kept building and building, thick enough to smother you whole. Adam felt like he couldn't get enough air.

Adam breathed in the sharp smell of ammonia and opened his eyes. It took him a moment to realize he was in the backroom, to watch Maura putting away the smelling salts and to understand that they had pulled him back to consciousness.

"I thought you had more sense than that," Calla snapped at Adam, watching him with concerned eyes, "than to keep charging in past the million and one warning signs." 

But Adam didn't think this was the time for trying to be sensible. He had to be doing something.

"I need to borrow the horse," Adam said quietly, but firmly.

"I would bring torches," Persephone told him in her small voice. "And some of the healing draught I asked you to brew yesterday."

Adam had never especially liked horses, and when he did have need of them he always rode cautiously. But not now. He was too worried that if he didn't move quickly he wouldn't be able to remember all the twists and turns to get him where he needed to go. He urged the horse to a gallop, and kept urging it faster and faster still. Finally, finally, the trees and surroundings began to look familiar from Adam's visions of Ronan Lynch.

Far later than he should have Adam considered that, although he was sure enough he was in the right place as he tied the horse's lead to a low branch, the fact was that he had no idea precisely where Ronan was.

As this occurred to him, he looked up to see a raven soaring toward him, calling out with a loud inhuman but oddly purposeful cry. The raven circled over Adam's head once and then flew toward an eastern field, repeating the same cry. Adam followed it.

He spotted Ronan's form lying on the top of one of the small sheds, and climbed up with his heart beating a little too fast against his ribs. Like the last time they'd met, Adam had the grave feeling that Ronan wouldn't move, but Ronan's sharp blue eyes flicked over to look at him with the same sort of disinterest that Ronan had been watching the sky with a moment before.

Ronan was alarmingly drained of color, and there were traces of that terrible blackness that Adam had seen in his visions caught in Ronan's eyelashes and in the faint cracks of his lips.

It was only when Adam reached out instinctively to try to rub off some of the darkness smeared under Ronan's eye that Ronan reacted, jerking back from Adam as if he'd been stung.

"What the fuck?" Ronan hissed, and Adam was oddly relieved to see some of the temper that was such a vital part of Ronan returning to him. "Parrish - what the _fuck_ are you doing here?"

"You were too much of a stubborn ass to come to me," Adam shot back, and in some distant corner of his mind he was a little surprised by how quickly relief had turned into a temper of his own. "Have you been dreaming?"

"No," Ronan said, like the stubborn ass he was. "I've been taking the shit you gave me."

"Why didn't you _stop_?"

"It's too dangerous for me to dream."

"You think _this_ isn't dangerous for you?"

Ronan glared off sullenly toward the trees. "I wasn't talking about dangerous to myself."

A frustrated part of Adam wanted to grab Ronan and shake him until he dropped the pretense of being beyond caring. "You can't keep on this way - _look at you_!"

This at least seemed to earn Adam some of Ronan's true attention, even if his expression was deliberately harsh and confrontational when he studied Adam. "What do you think you have to do with this, Parrish?"

"I don't know, Lynch," Adam said, because it was the truth; he didn't know how to express it to himself, let alone anyone else. But he wouldn't let himself be distracted from why he was here. "What does the faun girl have to do with this?"

This made Ronan stop and stare him down. "What do you know about her?"

"She came into my dreams," Adam told him. "She was terrified for you. I couldn't just ignore it."

Grudgingly, Ronan asked, "You know what I can do? When I dream?"

"I got an idea, when I scried," Adam said quietly.

"I've dreamt of her ever since I was little, but she wasn't one of mine. I didn't create her, she just visited me. Like she visited you, I guess. I call her the orphan girl. She makes my dreams easier to control, most of the time, when she's there. But over the years...she got too attached. It's no good for her. She came to my dreams too often, she was practically always there, and she wouldn't leave when things got vicious. There are some nightmares in my head that - it was too dangerous for her. My nightmares have always been a horror show, but lately - they've been something else."

"I saw. Whatever that darkness was…"

"In my head, I think of it as the Shadow Spread. It's not just some nasty dream-thing my subconscious decided to throw at me. It came in to my dreams and whatever it is it wants me gone. And it's going after the orphan girl first because it knows she makes it harder for it to get rid of me while she's there. And instead of going anywhere else and keeping herself safe, that little moron refuses to _leave_. No matter what I say or what happens to her, she's still hell-bent on staying there in my nightmares with me. So that's why I can't dream, so I won't make her a target."

Adam shook his head faintly as he took this in. "You have to know how worried about you she is. And just because you're killing yourself not dreaming doesn't mean that you know that she's out of danger wherever she is."

"I'm not going to be the reason," Ronan snarled. His anger was an explosive thing and all that negative force was internalized. "I'm not going to stand there with her dead on the ground in front of me."

Adam remembered blood tangled in dark hair. It made his voice softer than he thought he was really capable of when he said, "There has to be a better option than this."

"Like what? The best way to keep her safe would be to bring her here. To the waking world." Ronan's eyes cut away. "She asked." His throat worked. "I tried; I couldn't do it. I woke up and I was so drained of energy it took me forever to even be able to move, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. Then that night, the Shadow Spread was twice as bad as it'd ever gotten before. I couldn't fight it off, I was still almost entirely sapped of power in my dreams. We both paid for it, but she got it worse. I wasn't gonna be responsible for that a second time. So the next morning I went to you."

"This is only going to get worse the longer it goes on," Adam told him. "I can scry into your dreams, I can help you stop it."

Ronan's mouth twisted. "Fucking really? What makes you think you're a match for this thing?"

"Witch," Adam said, with more confidence than he felt. "And a dreamer. We'll get it done."

"The orphan girl's going to come to us," Ronan said, in an altogether different voice from the brusque tone he'd used just before. "I told you I'm not risking that."

"If we really can't stop it, then I'll be there to make her leave your dream," Adam said quietly. "I'll make sure she gets out okay."

"You can't guarantee that."

"You can't guarantee that she's not in jeopardy while we're wasting time with no one there to help her. You think you're the only one whose dreams are dangerous places for her?" Adam let out a heavy breath. "I know you don't want anything to happen to her. And that means we've got to face this."

"If we're gonna try this," Ronan said slowly, "I need to know that if it all goes wrong, that's on me, not her. You let it get me if it means getting her out of there. You understand?"

Adam swallowed down the first thing he wanted to say, and eventually managed a tight nod. Ronan didn't seem especially convinced by this, so he reached out and swiped away the black smear under Ronan's eye and showed Ronan the grime on his fingers. "Better quick than slow."

Ronan watched him for a few more heartbeats before he let out a scoff, an almost sardonically amused sort of sound. "Maybe you are the right bastard to get this done. I guess we'll see."

Adam pushed any uncertainty away and focused on the task at hand. "First you should drink this," he told Ronan, handing Ronan the flask of healing potion that he'd brought with him in his satchel just as Persephone had advised.

Ronan shook it skeptically. "What is it?"

"What's it matter," Adam retorted. "You really think it's gonna leave you worse off than you are now? Drink it."

Ronan cocked an eyebrow but nevertheless tossed the potion back like a shot. He made a show of handing back the empty flask to highlight his obedience in a mocking sort of way, but Adam didn't care because Ronan's color was already looking better.

"What you call the Shadow Spread, I'm pretty sure it's a kind of specter the women I work with have warned me about. They form when too much negative energy overwhelms a significant source of magic and they feed off the dark. So we're going to need light. Looks like you're good at that." This last bit Adam said with a gesture to the grounds around them - filled with fireflies, and with tiny specks of pure light that drifted every so often through the air like motes of dust but a thousand times brighter, and with otherworldly flowers that let off their own luminescence. "But we're going to need more."

Together they gathered wood for a bonfire in a far field that was a wide expanse of only dirt, and when they'd stacked the wood properly, they set it alight. Then Adam arranged the torches that Persephone had advised him to bring at strategic points, with the bonfire at the center. When that was done, Adam instructed Ronan to sit directly across from Adam, on the other side of the fire.

Adam could catch odd snatches of Ronan's sharp face through the flames. Something about the sight made it easy to believe that, at least for tonight, the world around them would listen to them. "Are you ready?"

"Are you?"

There was nothing left to do. Adam watched Ronan's sharp blue eyes drift shut, and he stared into the heart of the fire and let himself drift off too.

Like waking up in reverse, Adam became aware of the familiar dream forest around them, eerily still and silent. The darkness was waiting.

Ronan caught his eye, and between them the fire that was relentlessly blazing in both the waking world and in the dreamscape crackled with showers of sparks that were bright enough to be their own small comets.

Adam gave Ronan an uneven grin, letting his eyes close and pressing his palms to the dirt and focusing on what he could sense there. He reached his awareness out to the roots and up to the trunks of the trees and out to the wide-stretching branches. He put all his energy into guarding the plant life around them so that the Shadow Spread couldn't use them.

Unable to trench its way through the groundwork of the forest and seep into the essence of the dream the way that it hungered to, the Shadow Spread amassed in the air like billowing clouds of smoke stretching up beyond the flickering light of the flames. It coiled together into a form that made Adam think of a serpent. Having rallied itself, it drew back, a predator about to strike. Everything in Adam lurched icily at the thought of what would happen if its blow landed, but before it could, Ronan let out a sharp defiant shout and the flames leapt up to triple their height in a searing burst of light.

The Shadow Spread drew swiftly back, but only for a moment before it was ready to strike again, this time at Ronan. Ronan sent up another rush of flame, and then another, and another, but how long could Ronan keep that up? They needed a better plan.

"A blade!" Adam called to Ronan, and he threw all his remaining energy - more than he ever would have believed he had in him until he needed it in this moment - into forming a weapon from the flames that Ronan could use.

Ronan reached unflinchingly into the fire and pulled out something shaped very much like a sword, hewn from licks of white-hot flame.

With a wild yell and a flash of teeth, Ronan rushed forward and plunged the sword into the darkest center of the Shadow Spread.

For a frozen heart-stopping moment, nothing happened.

The Shadow Spread was still, but not defeated, the blade slicing a neat glowing line into its form but without carving out enough damage to take it down.

But then the fire began to singe through the Shadow Spread out from the blade's edge, the darkness' form breaking open from the center in bright jagged fissures like the after-image of a lightning strike. In a flare of brilliant light like the sun coming up over the water, the darkness was leveled, swiftly fading and then gone.

At Ronan's side, the wayward little blonde girl who'd appeared sometime amidst all of the chaos still kept her tight grip on Ronan's hands, where she'd helped him drive the blade of fire home into the Shadow Spread. The two of them stayed that way until the blade simmered gently down to a dim orange and then dispersed into faint wisps of smoke.

Then the orphan girl drew back and said, almost a whisper, "You came back for me."

Ronan, his breath coming in still a little unsteady, put both arms around her and pulled her into him. "Yeah, you goddamn pint-sized little miscreant, I came back for you." 

"The forest is very agitated," the orphan girl said, looking between Ronan and Adam with her raven-like eyes. "You should go, so nothing bad gets you. Then you can come back."

"You gonna be all right?" Ronan asked, brushing some ash haphazardly from her short hair.

The orphan girl nodded. "I'm a very good hider," she said. "Go!" And she disappeared into the trees as quickly and effortlessly as a deer.

It was sound advice, and they took it.

When they woke, the torches had all gone out and the bonfire had worked its way down to a low subdued flame.

Ronan watched him across the smouldering remnants of the fire. "We actually fucking did it."

"A witch and a dreamer," Adam mused, looking back at Ronan. "Who knows what else we could do, combining that kind of magic."

"We'd probably be strong enough to bring the orphan girl out of my dreams, the two of us," Ronan said, in a would-be casual sort of way. "If we wanted to try sometime."

Adam had spent enough time learning from Maura, Persephone, and Calla that he felt like he knew what they would say to him, even when they weren't there.

Calla would tell him that out of all the possible options Adam could choose for himself, Ronan Lynch would be one of the most difficult. She wouldn't be wrong.

Maura would tell him that he should be careful not to start anything he wasn't prepared to see through. She wouldn't be wrong.

Persephone would tell him that he should try to be open to making the connections that he was meant to make. She wouldn't be wrong.

If Adam had learned anything, it was that magic was found in the way the world was connected, and though he never would have imagined this for himself a week ago, the truth was...this was a connection Adam wanted to make.

So he said, "Look what we've done already. We're not just gonna stop now."

Ronan's smile was something fierce.


End file.
